Email-users to Active Passive and Missing eSOCIALizers for the Changes to Come!

Only indubitable subject today is the change societies are going through. Unless the Dooms day advocates have their way, there is no debate that the change process shall continue and I suspect the rate of change only to go north. Change- almost like an uninvited guest, without taking our permission- continues to alter our personal, social, familial and professional conduct. I assume a lot of agreement in identifying globalization and technological advancements as the “change drivers” of the contemporary world.

Globalization continues to impact our surroundings like products we buy (my parents recently bought a China made microwave from a Walmart store in India), movies we watch (MI4, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel do show a trend) and people we interact with (ethnic diversity in German Kindergartens). Globalization by nature being a top-down approach has left a room open for discussion. Recent criticism of the Indian government of being “too slow” in reforms is an example. On the contrary, technology with a bottom-up approach is embraced much faster by individuals. Adoption of latest mobile communication over the fixed telephone connections in Sub-Saharan Africa is a result of a bottom-up consumer driven approach. Technology impacts us (irrespective of reluctant habits) and would continue to alter our conduct, and is the theme of discussion here.

To start, let’s define any form of social interaction over an electronic medium as eSOCIALization. Examples include Emails, blogs, voice and video chats, on line forums, intranets and the recent inclusion of social networks. Internet initially developed by government funding gave rise to Email in the 70’s. Email as it got popular, transformed our habit of posting hand written letters to an electronic exchange with our contacts and loved ones. Further, individuals embraced blogs and online forums to connect to a wider and mostly unknown audience. Let’s refer Emails, blogs, online forums and intranets as first generation eSOCIALising tools. First generation tools are easy to comprehend and not hyper interactive, novice beginners can easily control who received what, when and how much information?

Modern tools are taking eSOCIALization to a new level all together. With the advent of very interactive second generation eSOCIALising tools like Facebook, Google+ etc. the personal/public boundaries disappear unintentionally. Already in brief existence, their role in the Arab spring uprising has been widely acknowledged. Not only these tools brought societies together for a cause but also provoked ideas about a bright future in distant groups. If societal impact is a measure, these tools have clearly left the first generation counterparts far behind. Minute by Minute, hundreds and thousands of individuals across the globe are getting hooked to form a human information chain. To understand our interaction with this information chain, let’s classify second generation eSOCIALizers into three categories (according to activity behavior). I enlist common actions (not a conclusive list of course), individuals in these categories would generally engage in.

Active eSOCIALizers: Have readily joined all the possible social networks and indiscriminately share a lot about life online. These people have adopted the technological advancements with a “don’t-care” attitude. Without getting into the details, they have gone with the flow to become the cheerleaders of next generation eSOCIALization. If an individual does most of these tasks on a regular basis, I assume her to be an Active eSOCIALizer:

• Add an acquaintance as a friend during the first meeting using a mobile device
• Checking in your location as soon as reaching a target destination
• Upload photos instantly with new acquaintances without bothering to check face expressions and nearby surroundings
• Enthusiastically posting trivial activities like jogging, outings and online activity scores etc.
• Mostly using social networks with the default settings provided by the platform (a darling for your service provider)

Passive eSOCIALizers: Are the people who have social network accounts but exercise caution. People here are watchful in putting any personal information (for different reasons like introvert nature, not very confident or fear data misuse) but enjoy observing what their peers are up to. A typical user here may spend the same amount of time online as an Active eSocializers but is mostly consuming information rather than posting something personal. Common activities include:

• Cautious approach in adding friends, differentiate between personal and professional contacts
• Use social network only to promote personal skills and services
• Not very keen to post location and details of people accompanying
• Carefully select photos and maybe Photoshop them before uploading it to the social platform
• Trying to understand various settings so that uninvited people don’t have access to too much of personal data
• Skeptic  that social networking tools might lead to personal data leaks on the Internet

Missing eSOCIALizers: This is the group totally averse to social networks and considers it as a mad wave engulfing a section of the society. This group mostly includes people with regular internet connection but not an active social network account.  You are self-immunized against social networks (not permanently I believe) and find the change happening amusing and in some extreme cases, deplore the phenomenon.

As individuals get hooked with different intents and behaviors, it can be realistically argued that all the participants cannot be grouped into three broad categories. In all probability, there is a huge chunk of readers that might fit between Active and Passive or Passive and Missing eSOCIALizers. We might also see people, based on personal experiences, changing groups with time and age. I personally don’t have a favorite category but I do have a point for the Missing eSOCIALizers. Friends!, irrespective of who you are, how old you are and what you do for living, by abstaining you have unilaterally decided to close your eyes to a big transformation our society is going through. Agreed there is a lot of irrelevant content being posted and discussed on these hyperactive platforms but is everything exactly irrelevant? Consider the prospect of three family generations interacting freely in public domain. This was not a possibility in the past but would be business-as-usual in the future. Let’s try to enlist major implications that social networks could have on us as individuals. I won’t be surprised if some of the Active, Passive and Missing eSOCIALizers have already experienced one of the following:

• We are in an era where parents and kids (especially teenagers) can be together on the same platform. Parents have a choice to use social networks as a policing tool or as a medium to bridge the gap that generally exists between middle aged parents and teen aged kids. An Active eSOCIALizer kid in the family can by chance post sensitive family matters in the public domain so parents of the 21^st century have an extra mentoring task assigned. Personally I feel that Missing eSOCIALising parents might find this more difficult to achieve.
• Knowing consumer preference and behavior would take a center stage and it would be normal to see companies trying to socialize with an individual consumer. Big multinationals would be very careful in counting an end customer as a single individual (consumer empowerment). Even a small misconduct of a company being discussed on social networks can spread like a wild fire and hit its bottom line. Already there are reports of customer mistreatment apologized by companies after a bad consumer experience was fed into these info-chain reactors.
• Professional talent hunt would take into our eHabits into account. It would be in our personal interest to maintain a dignified eProfile. Active eSOCIALizers might start considering consequences before posting uncontrolled content under their name. Employers, basically our peers in this eSOCIALising era already do considerable checks on our online activities (it is very easy, just Google your name from a new computer or your existing browser after clearing all the cookies) before considering us for potential job offers. Recruitment would evolve and it is in our best interest to understand the future.  Networking, impressive CV’s and a well maintained existing ePofile and eContacts might unlock the jobs of the future.
• Existing hierarchal structures within societies and companies would feel a flattening force being applied. I foresee very formal student teacher relationship in countries like India being redefined in the 21^st century.  The uncontrolled online interaction would push people and ideas closer for the better. Big multinational companies’ aspiring to bridge the communication gap between senior management and the workforce would also be benefitted. Today’s teenagers would enter the workforce tomorrow as competent eSOCIALizers and feel very comfortable using eSkills for work. Understanding employee profile, big companies would adopt corporate social networks to supplement the normal communication channel which now-a-days is primarily the Email. Static corporate intranets as they exist today would be redefined to provide an interactive environment for employees who meet occasionally in big corporations.

I truly feel that we are in a transformation process, lot of aspects and impacts of eSOCIALising are still not clear. People engaging on social platforms are not exactly aware of the hidden costs of the “free service”. A recent survey in a high school in the UK indicated that most of the teenagers didn’t know how Facebook and Google make their money and why the service is being offered for “free”. Extending this survey to an adult community might also give us some interesting insights. However, for the future we would see people much more informed about their digital life. Regarding conduct, eEtiquettes are not clearly defined and might never be but a careful thought at individual level can just serve us right.

Lot would change and new things will always appear, the discussion here is, by no means, conclusive. I hope that prospective readers through comments can also contribute other avenues where eSOCIALization might impact us. As one might guess, the option to become a Missing eSOCIALizer is not the one that I proclaim (of course, opinion is open to discussion). I firmly believe a balanced approach for good can guide us into the new era. Remember, basics change seldom.